In an interview, Mike Mignola announced today that Hellboy in Hell is ending its run in 2016 with issue 10. At that point Mignola will be taking a year off from drawing comic books to focus on fine arts, specifically painting.

Mignola said:

I was looking at what I had done, and coming off one of the stories I realized, ‘Oh, we’re further along in some way than I thought we were going to be. We got where we were going a lot faster. I had some fun stuff lined up that I was going to do, but if I did it, it was just going to soften the impact, it was just going to ramble more than it needed to ramble. I thought, If we’re going there, let’s just go there now. So, yes, we’re wrapping up Hellboy in Hell.

It’s been at least 25 years since I finished something and I didn’t know what I was doing next — I’ve always had a project lined up. I’ve painted in the past, but I only average about one painting a year, and the last painting I did, I actually really liked. So I thought, Gee, if I do a bunch of paintings, maybe I’ll actually figure out what I’m doing instead of relearning every year. So I asked my wife, could I do this? Could I just take a year off and just paint? Of course, I can’t really take a year off — I am co-plotting B.P.R.D. and these various other books, but I’d like to take a year off from drawing any kind of comics, and just spend the bulk of a year doing color work. I’ve never taken a significant chunk of time to just do work essentially for myself. I have no idea where it’s gonna go, but it’s exciting. It’s what keeps me going.